There is something almost cruel about December mornings, the way they arrive cold and brittle and unforgiving, the kind of chill that seeps through glass and makes the world outside feel hostile and unwelcoming. But inside, where I exist, the temperature is immaculate. The heating hums quietly in the background, expensive and efficient, keeping everything soft and warm while the frost clings to the windows and the sky stays grey and bitter. I woke this morning beneath layers of cashmere and silk, the kind of bedding that doesn’t apologize for its cost, the kind that wraps around skin like a second warmth and makes movement feel like indulgence. And I thought, as I always do when the season turns sharp, about the men who ensure this comfort continues without interruption. The ones who have quietly rearranged their priorities so that my life remains frictionless, luxurious, and utterly insulated from the discomfort of winter.
You’ve been doing it without being told, haven’t you? Sending more frequently as the temperature drops, as though some part of you understands that December demands more from you than other months. That keeping me warm, keeping me comfortable, keeping me draped in things that cost more than your heating bill requires a particular kind of financial devotion. And you’ve risen to it. Not because I asked. Not because I reminded you. But because by now, you’ve internalized the rhythm of this. You know that winter is when luxury becomes most visible, most necessary, most exquisite. When the contrast between my world and yours sharpens until it aches. When every payment you make feels less like generosity and more like maintenance, like the cost of ensuring that someone far more beautiful than you will never feel the cold the way you do.
I spent yesterday afternoon shopping, moving through boutiques with the kind of ease that comes from never checking price tags, never calculating whether something fits within a budget. Everything fits. Everything belongs. Because you’ve ensured that my access to luxury is unlimited, unquestioned, and entirely separate from the concerns that govern your own spending. I selected a coat, charcoal grey and impossibly soft, the kind of thing that looks simple but costs what you earn in a week. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t pause. I simply decided I wanted it, and it became mine. And somewhere, in the background of that transaction, your payment cleared. Your contribution made that moment possible. And you weren’t there to see it. You weren’t there to witness the way the fabric draped across my shoulders or the way the sales assistant smiled and said it looked perfect. You were somewhere else, working, perhaps, or sitting in a room colder than mine, wondering whether the charge you just saw was the coat or something else I bought without telling you. Wondering, and aching, and knowing that either way, you’ll never touch it. Never see it. Never be close enough to the luxury you’re funding to even smell the expensive wool or feel how warm it keeps me.
That’s what December does, isn’t it? It makes the distance between us unbearably visible. You’re budgeting for gifts you don’t want to buy, for obligations that feel heavy and joyless, for heating bills and travel costs and all the small expenses that pile up when the year ends and the cold settles in. And I’m layering silk beneath cashmere, slipping into things that cost more than your rent, moving through my days in a haze of warmth and comfort that you’ve purchased but will never inhabit. You’re tightening your budget. I’m expanding my wardrobe. You’re calculating what you can afford. I’m deciding what I want. And somewhere in that imbalance, in that elegant cruelty, you’ve found the only thing that makes winter bearable for you. The knowledge that while you shiver, I’m warm. While you sacrifice, I indulge. While you ache, I luxuriate. And that your money is the mechanism that makes all of it possible.
I wore the new coat this morning. Just for a few hours. Just long enough to feel how beautifully it moved, how perfectly it fit, how utterly unnecessary it was and yet how entirely correct. I didn’t need another coat. I have several. But I wanted this one. And wanting, in my world, is the same as having. There’s no gap between desire and possession when men like you exist to close it. No pause between seeing something beautiful and making it mine. You’ve removed every obstacle between my preferences and their fulfillment, and in doing so, you’ve made yourself essential in the most invisible way possible. I don’t think about you when I’m wearing something you paid for. I don’t feel gratitude. I feel comfort. I feel rightness. I feel the quiet satisfaction of living exactly as I should, surrounded by things that reflect my standards, insulated from discomfort by the financial contributions of men who understand that proximity to me requires constant proof.
And the thing about winter is that it makes luxury feel even more deserved. When the world outside is harsh and unforgiving, when everything is cold and grey and difficult, the warmth inside becomes something sacred. The silk against my skin feels richer. The cashmere feels heavier. The perfume I wear—expensive, exclusive, the kind you’d never recognize even if you stood close enough to smell it—feels more intoxicating. Because I’m not just comfortable. I’m protected. Shielded. Wrapped in a life you’ve built for me, transaction by transaction, payment by payment, until my existence became something you maintain rather than something I work for. And that’s the most seductive part of all of this, isn’t it? Not that I’m beautiful. Not that I’m distant. But that I’m effortless. That my luxury costs you everything and costs me nothing. That I live in warmth you’ve purchased, wearing things you’ve funded, moving through days you’ve smoothed, and I never once pause to thank you for it.
December will end soon. Seventeen days remain. And when it does, when the year closes and the cold deepens and the new year begins, you’ll look back at what you sent and realize it wasn’t enough. It never is. Because the cost of keeping me warm, keeping me indulged, keeping me living in the kind of beauty that makes winter feel like a backdrop rather than a burden, doesn’t decrease. It only grows. And you’ll send more. Not because I’ll ask. But because by now, you can’t imagine a winter where I’m anything less than perfectly, impossibly, expensively comfortable.